Bidding adieu to the greatest 'not suitable for ODIs' cricketer ever

He is a Test Specialist. He is not suitable for ODI cricket.

Ignoring all his detractors, Rahul Dravid went on to do something like….. THIS.

	M	I	NO	RUNS	HS	Avg.	100′s	50′s	SR.
TOTAL	339	313	40	10765	153	39.43	12	82	71.18

Now, When I read the above quote, and then turn towards that table, my instant reaction is, “You Gotta be Kidding Me!!!”Either the statistician is drunk, or the people who made the above statement are drunk, because the statement and the table definitely don’t go hand in hand. Most Celebrated ODI specialists would kill to own those numbers. I mean seriously, how many cricketers in the 10,000+ club were tagged as ‘Not suitable’ for ODI cricket? Not Many. How many cricketers tagged as ‘Not suitable’ for ODIs went on to join the 10,000+ club? Not Many. Still some how, plagued by negative vibes and scrutinies all around, Dravid managed to be the ‘Not suitable for ODI’ Cricketing great.

Dravid is the 7th highest run-getter of all times in ODIs

Those number become more special when we consider the fact that in his career spanning 15yrs, Dravid was actually active in ODI cricket for only 11yrs, which means on an average he scored close to 1,000 runs/season which is actually phenomenal. Those numbers attain even more significance considering a bulk of those runs came batting at position no. 4, 5, or 6, which testifies the fact that very few realise but even Ganguly agrees, that Dravid developed as a Great Finisher for the Indian Team in ODIs. Still somehow he was ‘Not-suitable’ for ODIs.

In fact, if you look closely, probably no one else in the 10,000 club has floated through the batting order so randomly as Dravid. Sachin, Sourav, Sanath, Ponting, they all had pretty much fixed position in batting line-up. Kallis, Lara and Inzy did do a bit of floating but not as much as Rahul.

Rahul and Sourav stand at 6th in the list of Highest partnership runs by a pair with Rahul being the only person to feature in two 300+ partnerships in ODIs(331 with Sachin, 318 with Sourav), both incidentally for 2nd wicket. Rahul, along with Sachin, also holds the record for Highest partnership for 3rd wicket with 237* runs

Talking about the strike rate, one of the major concerns for Dravid, though being the lowest of all the 10,000+ club members, one would still wonder whether the line is so thin between a specialist ODI player and a specialist test player that a batsman with strike rate of 71.18 is known as ‘Not suitable’ and a batsman with 73.80 strike rate is known as one of the greatest Openers ODI cricket has ever seen(Read Sourav Ganguly). Agreed that Dravid’s strike rate was slightly on the slower side but does that mean he was not capable? I wouldn’t say that after watching his IPL performances, this inning against New Zealand or His T20I Debut/Retirement Inning. It shows that Dravid definitely had the arsenal but what he also had was the patience of a saint. Still somehow he was ‘Not suitable’ for the ODIs. Probably because of his face value(Not literally, as Dravid is definitely one of the better looking cricketers. By face value, i mean the way he batted, the way he played his strokes). He never slogged, rarely cleared the stands, rarely played expansive, lofted shots and still managed to pace his innings well. But with this attitude, he did bring with him a sense of Trust.

Most ‘Flair’ Players in the history of cricket have been guilty of hitting some rash or irresponsible shot at a crucial juncture of the game. We haven’t forgotten the Sachin shot against Pak in 1999 Chennai Test, have we? India needed 17 runs to win with 4 wickets in hand, but Sachin chose to go for a six off Saqlain, and the rest is history.

Dravid also holds the record for playing most consecutive innings in ODIs(120) without getting a duck

“Play your Natural Game” has always been an excuse for the flair players to play rash shots to get out at a crucial juncture in the game, but somehow i feel that it is a bit overrated. A real Team player is one who could shed his natural game, shed his ego, and play for the team, true to the occasion. With Dravid, there came a sense of trust. Whether Tests or ODI’s, a rash shot from his bat would never come to put India’s hopes in Dust. Dravid always played true to the occasion. So when he came into bat when scoreboard read 283/4 in 43 overs and India had nothing to lose, he chose the occasion to let loose to score a 22 ball 50. When the situation demanded, he stuck to wicket and played along with laxman, yuvraj and Bangar to chase a total of 324 against WI. When run-rate was not a problem, thanks to a blazing start by Sachin, he just made sure that no more wickets fell, and took India past Pak’s total without any scare along with yuvraj in 2003 WC match. That was Dravid. Ganguly’s 10 more centuries for just 600 more runs, and Sehvag’s 2 more centuries for 3000 less runs actually speaks of Dravid’s Consistency and his ability as a Finisher. True, he could rarely take the game away from the opposition in ODIs unlike the flair players, but then unlike them he rarely gifted the game to the opposition. Still Somehow, he managed to be ‘Not suitable’ for ODI cricket.

Rahul was the highest run-scorer in the 1999 ICC WC with 461 runs in 8 matches and is the only player other than Mark Waugh to have scored back-to-back hundreds in a WC

Between his debut in April,1996 to September,1998; Dravid was picked up and dropped from the ODI team thrice. The Obvious Reason being ‘Not Suitable’ for ODI Cricket. But Dravid broke all the shackles, mended his natural game and broke into the team once again. The Toronto series against Pakistan in 1998 saw him being picked up for the 4th time, and rest, as we all know, is history. Dravid cemented his place in the ODI team in 1999 WC, and never looked back. For the next 9yrs, he missed just one triangular series, which speaks volumes about his fitness too which is of such importance in ODI Cricket. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if i say that Dravid was probably the fittest player among the Indian Cricketing greats of this era including Ganguly, sachin, Kumble, Laxman and Sehwag. This catch, then termed as the Catch of the Millenium by the Commentators, or this crazy Inzy Run-out, or even this awesome catch in IPL bear testimony to the fact that Dravid is still very fit. He just plays Tests, but is still so lean and mean. When i compare some of the youngsters like Yuvraj and Sehwag who have become so burly, i wonder will they ever last till 38??

Dejection in Indian Camp after a shock exit due to a Badly formatted tournament. Team India didn't deserve it. Rahul as a captain didn't deserve it

From 1998 till 2007, he had seen it all, done it all. The year 2007 was probably the most eventful year for Dravid in his ODI career at least. Dravid had everything on his side except Luck. He captained India to a disastrous WC campaign, thanks to a ridiculous format which never let India recover from the shock loss against Bangladesh. He rose to his career high ICC ODI ranking of 5 in the same year. He stepped down from the captaincy in the same year after a successful English Tour. 6 matches later came the shock exclusion of him from the ODI team just after failing in a single series against Australians. Rumors have it that the Powers that be(read BCCI Selectors) were apparently not happy with Dravid for not taking them into confidance and directly informing BCCI Chief about his resignation. “We haven’t spoken to him yet. We wanted to give him a break for a while. He is a great player and he will be back soon”, said Vengasarkar but the ‘soon’ came 2yrs little too late. What was the actual scene behind the whole incident, we’d only know if one of the involved parties ever come up with an auto-biography.

Dravid, during his 2009 come-back before getting another snubbing after a decent show

2009, When Indian batting was struggling against pace and bounce, saw Dravid making a comeback to ODI team in a lead up to Champions Trophy in SA. That he was dropped from the team after being the 2nd highest run-getter for India in the 6 matches he played, was a classic example of how Cricket works in India, and how Great cricketers are always snubbed in India by a bunch of tie and coat wearing officials who have no idea how to face a 145+ bouncer directed right towards your rib-cage, and the reason cited once again was that Dravid was ‘Not Suitable’ for the ODIs.

Rahul Dravid always shared this typical Love-Hate relationship with the ODI Cricket. He gave all the love to ODI cricket, but in return got all the hate from it. People would like to think that Dravid has done a lot for India in Tests, but i’d like to say that its the ODI cricket for which Dravid made the maximum sacrifices.

The biggest sacrifice probably came when, in the lead up to the 2003 World Cup, Dravid took up the extra job of keeping the wickets for India. Lot of people still feel that it was Ganguly who did a favor to Dravid by salvaging his place in the ODI team by making him keep wickets. To all those people, i’d just like to say that Dravid was the vice-captain for the team and he had already scored loads of runs when he took up the extra job.Had Dravid denied keeping wickets in the WC 2003, and Ganguly was forced to pick up a specialist keeper in the team, who acc. to you would have lost his place from the team? Dravid or Md. Kaif/Dinesh Mongia? The answer to my question is the answer to all those cynics with superficial thinking. Dravid was probably doing a favor for Ganguly, Team India and Dinesh Mongia, by making an extra slot vacant for another specialist batsman.

Dravid along with Kallis stands at joint 3rd position on the list of players with max. 50's having scored 82 of them

Another big sacrifice came from the fact that, despite being the most consistent batsman, and captain of the team, he never gave himself a fixed position to bat at no. 3. Instead, he remained a floater, searching for the pressure situations, coming at no. 3 or 4 in times of distress and deadly pitches, and coming at 5 or 6 on other occasions, which probably led to his own downfall in 2007. It was his batting so low down the order that saw him scoring many 40′s and 50′s but rarely 100′s. Had he got himself fixed at No. 3, and nobody could have questioned him coz he deserved it, God knows how many runs and hundreds he would have scored. He did all of that and much more for ODIs and not tests, but still somehow he was ‘Not Suitable’ for ODIs.

He is a Great Test Player. But he is not suitable for ODIs. It is this superficial thinking that i have always tried to uproot from people’s minds. I spent all of my childhood and adolescence fighting with my friends and cousins trying to tell them that Rahul is NOT ‘Not Suitable’ for ODI Cricket, that Rahul has been the Most Valuable Player, The Impact Player for India in ODIs. And now when Dravid has finally given up on ODIs, I’d like to step up for one last time to prove to the world that Dravid is the MVP for India in ODI Cricket.

Dravid is the 3rd highest run scorer in a calender year with 1761 runs in 1999, only behind Sourav(1767 runs in 1999) and Sachin(1894 runs in 1998). Quite phenomenal considering he was not considered an ODI material

Though Dravid downplays his achievements saying that if you play those many matches, those many runs would automatically come, i’d like to say that the vice-versa is more appropriate. You play those many matches only when you score those many runs, and sometimes you still get snubbed. Though Dravid states that he is not a statistics man, without beating around the bushes anymore, i’d jump straightforward to some statistics to see if Dravid is actually the MVP of Indian ODI Cricket. Because we have a short memory and a superficial mind, we need those stats to learn.

As his career stats still remain envy of most ODI specialists in World, i’d still like to look into how much did it actually had an impact on India’s success in ODI cricket.

	M	I	NO	RUNS	HS	Avg.	100	50	SR.
Winning Cause	160	142	29	5729	153	50.69	8	47	75.27
Losing Cause	162	162	10	4704	123*	30.94	4	32	66.93

Now this definitely gives us a fair bit of idea of Dravid’s Impact in India’s Winning Cause. But then, You take out any player, even Md. Kaif, and he would average better in the matches that India won than the matches India lost. So lets dig deeper.

How about putting his efforts in perspective by comparing them to the Bloody Best, Sachin Tendulkar? Let me tell you that i am not trying to prove here that Dravid is a better ODI player than Sachin. No statistical gods would come down to help me achieve that(though i could attempt to do that in Tests). What i’m trying to do here is let the world know that Rahul was not dispensable, or liability to the ODI team as widely considered. He was a valuable commodity and an Impact Player for ODIs and definitely not the ‘Not suitable for ODIs’ player.(I also wanted to compare him with Sourav but then it was getting more and more tedious for me and probably boring for the readers with so many numbers).

Player	Matches	50+ innings	Majors	Minnows	Home	Away
Rahul	339(160)47.20%	94(55)58.51%	81(42)51.85%	13(13)100%	31(19)61.29%	63(36)57.14%
Sachin	453(230)50.77%	143(91)63.63%	122(71)58.19%	21(20)95.23%	58(38)65.51%	85(53)62.35%

*all stats till 02-09-11*numbers in Parentheses include the innings coming in winning causes

Dravid is the fastest batsman to accumulate 10,000 runs in ODIs with respect to time taken(Just 10yrs, 317 days) and 6th fastest in terms of no. of innings played(287), 28 more than the fastest, Sachin. Not bad again considering the positions at which the two stalwarts batted

I compared 50+ innings, instead of just the centuries, coz Rahul’s 12 centuries(courtesy, his batting lower down the order for major chunk of his career) was a really small sample to compare with Sachin’s 48 and my statistician teacher had told me that larger the sample size, better the co-relation and extrapolation of the results.

So as it stands, Except for against the minnows, where Dravid has a 100% record, he always falls behind the master by a slight margin, but then, the margin is really slight. There is not much to separate between the two. After reading those stats, you definitely cant say that Dravid was ‘Not suitable for ODIs’. As my sir used to say, Statistics are lies, lies and damn lies. They can give some idea, but they can deceive too and they can be bent any which way you want to prove your point.

Someone can say that Dravid won just 47.20% of the games, 3.5% less than Sachin, but then its not just these two individuals who made this difference of 3.5% possible. The other fact being the rest of the team members. While in the initial years, they both had to play with the likes of Dinesh Mongia, Hemang Badani, Saba Karim and against a better bowling attack like the Warnes, Muralis, Akrams, McGraths, We cant deny that the recent surge in Indian Team in past 4-5yrs with the likes of Raina, Kohli, Dhoni and kinda depleted bowling attacks around the world has also added up to those 3.5%.

Interesting thing that i found was Dravid took 3.6 matches/50+ innings or 18 matches to hit five 50+ innings(to avoid the headache of fractions) in comparison to Sachin who takes 16 matches to hit five 50+ innings. Not bad, one would say, when we consider the fact that Sachin batted as an opener under field restrictions for a major chunk of his career and gets a chance to bat in almost every of those 16 matches, while Dravid probably didn’t even get a chance to bat in some of those 18 matches or sometimes came as late as 40 overs(for example, once he came into bat for just 1 ball and remained not out at 1).

Another interesting thing to note here is the fact that Dravid, like Tests, stays true to his image of raising his bar against Major Cricketing nations and in away matches even in ODIs. Dravid has hit 86.17% (Sachin 85.31) of his 50+ innings against major cricketing nations, and has hit as much as 67.02% (Sachin just 59.64%) of his 50+ innings outside India. And if i exclude the Grounds of Indian Sub-continent like Dhaka, Colombo, and similar grounds like Sharjah, Sachin’s away performance falls even drastically. Clearly, Sachin has made a good use of minnows and run oozing flat pitches which Dravid could not because he batted lower down the order. The fact that Dravid’s winning percentage against majors, and away from home are lower than sachin can be attributed to the failure of other players rather than his own failure. The fact that his winning percentage against minnows is better than sachin can be attributed to a better showing by other cricketers against minnows.

Now I’d definitely like to know that if India loses despite Rahul’s good innings, its a collective failure, and if they win despite his poor performance, its collective win, then, is there any worthwhile contribution that can be solely attributed to Rahul and nobody else???YES!!!!

Doubling up as a wicketkeeper and batsman, he was instrumental in India's success in 2003 WC when they won eight games in succession to power into the final. Dravid top-scored in the crucial win against England, and struck unbeaten knocks to guide India home against Pakistan and New Zealand. He finished with 318 runs, 15 catches behind the stumps and a stumping.

Known to his fans and critics alike as a Team Man, who did all the sacrifices, all the jobs that were asked to do of him, his biggest sacrifice came when he took up the extra job of keeping when he could have easily made it to the playing 11 simply on his batting prowess itself. Rahul first officially kept wickets for India in 1999 WC against Sri Lanka. In his debut match as W/k, he scored a magnificent 145. After that he kept for India on and off whenever the tour w/k got injured, until Sourav Ganguly, John Wright and Rahul himself came up with this ‘brilliant’ idea of having Rahul as a regular keeper to accommodate extra batsman/bowler. In order to compensate for a genuine batting/bowling all-rounder which most of the teams had, but india never had, Dravid agreed to take up the job of a regular keeping all-rounder in late 2001 in the lead up to the 2003 WC and remained so until the arrival of MS Dhoni in late 2004. By then, Dravid had played 73 matches of his career as a keeper/Batsman. I wonder how many specialist w/ks get to play those many matches! Though no stats are required to show how India’s performance improved with inclusion of an extra batsman due to Dravid’s extra job, as NatWest 2002 and WC 2003 speak for itself, still to keep things in perspective-

	Matches	Won	Winning Percentage
Rahul as batsman	266	123	46.24
Rahul as keeper batsman	73	37	50.68

Clearly, India’s performance improved quite a bit( by 4.5%) due to Dravid’s keeping job. Now, though a team game, we could say that this improvement can be solely attributed to Dravid’s contribution because team was more or less the same except that extra batsman(whether Kaif or Dinesh Mongia), which would not have been there had Dravid not took to keeping. Though, its not required, still, just for fun, lets find out whether this improvement of 4.5% was simply due to the 7th batsman or did Dravid too contributed to it with even better batting performance.

Rahul as keeper	M	I	NO	Runs	HS	Avg.	SR	100	50	Ct.	St.
in winning cause	37	31	10	1364	145	64.95	78.48	3	10
Losing cause	31	31	2	825	103*	28.44	65.73	1	3
No result/Tie	5	2	0	111	82	55.5	63.42	0	1
Total	73	64	12	2300	145	44.23	72.60	4	14	71	13

Rahul as batsman	M	I	NO	Runs	HS	Avg.	SR	100	50	Ct.	St.
in winning cause	123	111	19	4365	153	47.96	74.32	5	37
Losing cause	131	131	8	3879	123*	31.54	67.19	3	29
No result/Tie	12	7	1	221	78	36.83	71.29	0	2
Total	266	249	28	8465	153	38.30	70.80	8	68	125*	1*

*Dravid effected 1 catch and 1 stumping as a stand-in keeper when he was keeping in place of regular keeper who got injured during the match.

Dravid stands on 26th position in the list of all time Best w/ks and 4th amongst Indians. Not a bad job for a make-shift keeper

He also stands on 8th place in all time catchers, a position he could have improved had he not done keeping in 70+ matches

The above two tables clearly show that somehow, i cant fathom the reason though, Dravid perked up his batting as well when he kept wickets. May be its because he used to come down the order as a keeper that helped him notch up a whopping avg. of 64.95 as keeper in India’s winning cause and that he was not out for a 10 out of 31 occasions which again gives testimony to the fact that he had developed as a great finisher for India. After looking at the above tables, we could assume that Dravid helped India improve its winning percentage not just by allowing space for an extra-batsman but also by his own improved batting.

Trivia: As a Captain, though Rahul had a disastrous WC campaign, but it was under his captaincy that India made record of 17 consecutive successful chases in ODIs 2 of which came under Sourav’s captaincy.

I am not sure whether, with all those words and figures, i was able to convince you people or not that he was the MVP for India as far as ODIs are concerned because its after all a subjective feeling and stats or no stats, he will always remain my MVP for India in ODIs and Tests but i’m damn sure of one thing that i proved- he was definitely one of the Impact players of ODI cricket.

Putting in efforts worth 200%

Rahul Dravid was a great Cricketer and probably the greatest ‘Not Suitable for ODIs’ Player ever.So friends, if you have even a little bit of respect for this man’s contribution to ODI cricket, who gave not his 100, but 200% to ODI cricket(considering his dual role), then do just one thing.

He is a Test Specialist. He is not suitable for ODI cricket.

Strike off this mean and superficial thought from your mind just like i’ve done it here.

His action spoke louder than his words. As someone rightly said, "It is amazing that in this time and age, when everyone is shouting from the rooftops, you actually hear the man who is whispering."

Rahul Dravid never asked for glaring spotlight or attention. All he commanded and wanted was a bit of respect. So friends, join me in front of your respective TV sets(or at Cardiff if you are lucky enough) today to pay a Salami to this man. I would also like to request the English Audience who have been too appreciative of Sachin on this tour to once look beyond Sachin and give this Man, Rahul Dravid, a standing ovation too at Cardiff, for God knows how much he deserves it.

In the meantime, i’d like to tell all you Dravidians to stop moaning. It might be Dravid’s last ODI but he’s still got India’s back in Tests and not to mention that little colorful Circus known as IPL where he would keep performing. Dravid is here to stay.

But before that, lets get ready to witness the climax of this 15yr old Love-Hate Relationship between Rahul and ODI Cricket on this 16th of September at the end of which only love will remain and will remain a few beautiful memories.

A little piece of trivia before signing off-For a player who was not destined to play ODI cricket, Rahul Dravid went on to become the only cricketer in the history to represent his nation in 18 different countries in ODI cricket and only 1 of the 4 players(Inzamam-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Yousuf being the other 3) to win an ODI match for his nation in 17 different countries, Netherlands being the only country where India could not win a single ODI.And today When he sets his foot at Cardiff, Wales, he would become the only player to have played an ODI for his country in 19 different countries and the only player to have won at least a match in 18 different countries(If India could pull off a rare miraculous win on this tour)

Best of luck to Team India Selectors picking up the team for harsh ODI tours. Their favorite whipping boy is not available anymore